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The End of Halloween (I Promise)

Thought I'd grab a moment while the kids continue overdosing on sugar to let everyone know that Halloween here was a rip-roaring success. Larry took the 4 youngest to a zillion houses and they came home bearing approximately 46 pounds of candy each. Which we promptly took away. Just kidding - we waited until they finally went to bed and then we took it away. Except for a few pieces, which they are working on now.

Susie dropped out after about 50 houses and came home and sat on the floor and devoured candy. It was awesome to watch. She ate and ate and ate. At one point, she had 3 different lollipops going, and an open pack of Skittles. What finally slowed her down was when she peed in her (pretty darn absorbent) pumpkin costume.

Anna went trick-or-treating with a neighborhood friend. Because the friend's family is just so cool and not horribly embarrassing like ours. Not that I am bitter or anything.

This morning we walked to the bagel shop for breakfast and the kids picked up dropped candy from the ground. Because they didn't eat enough last night. Happily, they didn't mistake the round piece of dog poop for chocolate.

I chopped up our jack-o-lanterns today - darned if I'm going to let those stupid squirrels eat them instead of us. And before all you slackers start commenting on how you don't even know how to cook pumpkin, let me just point out that it's easy - you hack the pumpkin apart, take off the rind (that's the dark orange part, for you cooking novices out there), and you cut the rest into chunks and throw it in your crockpot on high all day. (Oh, and make sure the crockpot is plugged in. The food cooks faster that way.) That's all there is to it. And it sure beats throwing 20 dollars worth of pumpkins in the trash.

At least, that's how I felt before I spent an hour chopping up one and a half pumpkins and then realized I still had at least 2 hours to go. Now, I'm not so sure. If I'm saving 20 dollars by not throwing out the pumpkins, but it takes me, say, 4 hours (including clean-up) to do it.....that's 5 dollars an hour. I think I'd earn more working at Target, and I'd get an employee discount, too.

But which is better for my career, pumpkin-hacking or customer service? That is the question. I wonder what Hillary would say....

I started doing pumpkin the lazy way. Poke some holes in it and pop it in the microwave for a while. When it starts to soften a bit, then I cut into it. Lots easier and works for squash too. And your comment about dog poop - when I was three, my brother told me some poop was candy and I ate it. Never lived that down. I still like chocolate though.

Oh yeah, we always took the good candy away from our kids. For their own good, of course.

You crack me up about the pumpkins. I would totally do that, too - work on something for hours while calculating how much it is costing me to do it myself rather than just buying, say, a can of pumpkin from the store.

Ooooh. I like that motherwise tip - because I was just going to comment that I was never able to even cut into the pumpkin in the first place (in order to use it!) Oh. Dear. I just read the rest of her comment. Whew. Must go lie down.

Mine are going in the compost bin, largely because the one Ana carved caught FIRE (I hadn't contained the candle. Mistake. Big mistake.) and the one Jane carved is so covered with Sharpie that it's probably toxic. I'm pretty sure it should say "made in China" on it.

Wait, I guess that's bad for plants, huh? Oh well, it's not like we actually DO anything with our compost pile. I prefer to think of it as a "time capsule."

I'm glad I'm not the only Mom out there who lets her kids dig into their candy after they return from trick-or-treating! But to lessen the guilt we ALWAYS have a huge glass of milk with all that candy. Whoppers and a glass of milk . . . it's almost a balanced meal!!

The kids cut the tops off my pumpkins this year but didn't scoop so they rotted before I got to them. And I grew them in the garden! I was in pain, but I had to toss them. I just love the kids passed out with candy in their hands and stuck to their faces, they look so angelic.

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6 children, 1 husband (I'm boring that way). Here are the kids by name and age, to make it easy on you:
Theo (26), Anna (24), David (20), Brian (17), Rachel (15), and Susie (12, and now taller than I am).
No pictures, no real names, as my husband is totally paranoid. In a cute sort of way, of course...